The Story of Twinkie

  In the fall of 2005, we were in a new house in Apex, NC, and one of our two cats, Granite, decided to disappear, even though we had been in the house for several months and he seemed to have settled in. He had even gone outside a few times to explore. So when it was obvious that he wasn't coming back, we went to the SPCA to look at kittens.
  The remaining cat, Onyx, wasn't enthused about the two interlopers we brought home, Bandit and Twinkie. All three cats were female, and it soon became apparent that they despised each other. They quickly established a pecking order: Bandit, Onyx, Twinkie.
  Twinkie was the most pitiful cat we've even owned. Timid, she would find a soft place to hide and just camp out there for weeks at a time, emerging only to eat and use the litter box. She was always congested and the vet couldn't figure out why. I suspect she was allergic to people. She dealt with her lowest status by eating. She grew to be huge, like a fluffy couch cushion with eyes. She was so huge that she couldn't clean all of herself properly so she often needed a bath. She would tolerate the scrubbing as only a shy cat could. Even her meows were soft, like she had permanent kitty laryngitis. Like I said, she was pitiful.
  As she got older, her congestion grew worse. She snored loudly, and it wasn't clear to any of us when she became sick because she had always sounded wheezy. On Friday morning of a big ice storm last week, I found Twinkie in the girls' bathtub. She liked to climb into bathtubs and showers to lick up the puddles--she was always thirsty, it seemed. Perhaps she had kitty diabetes. Anyhow, she had been unable to climb out of the empty tub. I called the vet, but they were closed due to the ice.
  On Tuesday when it looked like we would be able to drive safely, Twinkie seemed to be feeling better. She slept a lot but would eat, drink, and make a pilgrimage to the litter box at least once a day. Maybe it was just a cold. On Friday she refused water and I finally took her to the vet.
  Pneumonia, an infection in her ear, dehydration, and a heart and lungs that were shutting down. She was half her original weight. She had always been so quiet that I didn't realize how sick she had become. Faced with the prospect of hospitalizing her at great expense from which she still might not recover and euthanizing her, I opted for one of the most painful decisions I've ever made.
  Twinkie glanced back at me with those trusting eyes as the vet carried her out of the room. I used up a box of tissues until she brought Twinkie back twenty minutes later, bundled up in a piece of cloth like a package. She was still warm but the wheezing had stopped.
  Today the family will bury the package named Twinkie in the woods. Why do we adopt animals when they have such short lifespans and always break out hearts? I think it's because they love unconditionally and expect so little from us. I have many funny stories of timid Twinkie, but today I can't think of a single one. Suffice it to say that she will be missed.

My Big Birthday Sale

  In honoring of turning half a century this month, I'm offering all three of my books for .99 on Kindle. Get 'em while they're cheap!
http://www.amazon.com/Orphan-Ship-Sterling-R-Walker-ebook/dp/B00CW60ZPK/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1453138159&sr=8-1

Merry Christmas!

  It's been too long since I've posted, and I'm sorry! Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year! I've been blessed more than words can say in 2015, and look forward to more adventures -- and hopefully a new book to publish -- in 2016. Here are a few photos of my gorgeous family. I'll try to post something substantial before Valentine's Day.

November Book Contest

November BetterThanGoodreads Giveaway! Like the contest post on my author Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/authorSterlingRWalker/  for a chance to win ALL THREE Orphan Ship paperbacks. Who doesn't like free books? The winner will selected on Nov. 30th. You're not limited by distance--I'll ship them anywhere. Like my Facebook page, like my post, and win free books! And if you've already read them, they make great Christmas gifts!

http://www.amazon.com/Orphan-Ship-3-Book/dp/B016DDZA98/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1446490642&sr=8-4&keywords=the+orphan+ship

Have a wonderful November and don't forget to count your blessings! ~Sterling

Leaf Me Alone

 

  I listen to them. They say I'm beautiful when it gets cold. They love my red color, but they complain when all the red falls off and they have to rake it up. No one says it's beautiful when one of them loses the stuff on top. 'Hair' they call it. The two-trunks are disgusting creatures.
  After I'm bald, they go around and drive tubes into my bark and catch my sap in buckets. Oh, the pain! The oak told me they boil down the sap and eat it on pancakes (whatever that is). Revolting.
  None of them will allow another two-trunk to drive tubes into their bark and collect their red sap in buckets. 'Blood' they call it. Although the dogwood told me he heard some of them talking about a movie (whatever that is) where the two-trunks did that to each other and laughed about it. Disgusting creatures! I wish I had been planted somewhere far away from these lunatics.
  The oak told me when I die, I won't go to two-trunk heaven (whatever that is) but to the lumber mill. 'Hardwood floors' they call it. What an insult to my beauty. I feel safe in saying the trees will still be around long after the disgusting two-trunks. No creature so revolting can possibly survive its own stupidity.
  The next time you see a bald two-trunk eating pancakes, think of me.

Lighthouse Keeper

  It's 387 steps to the top. I know this because I'd counted them every evening at twilight for fourteen years. I could get to the top in my sleep. In 2006, they installed a switch at the bottom of the stairs. Then I only had to climb once a week to clean the windows or change the bulbs.
  Natalie left in '07 and took Gemma with her. She said it was too isolated and no place to raise a child, that Gemma needed other children to play with. I stayed.
  In '08 the hurricane took out most of the beach. I rode out the storm in the lighthouse tower. The generator needed tending, of course. It was my duty. The light stayed on for forty-eight hours straight. The governor thanked me in person for my diligence. The state even gave me a raise.
  Gemma graduated high school last year. She asked if she could come live with me. She said she missed the solitude and the beach and me. Mostly me. She met a surfer I don't approve of, but he's opening a T-shirt shop on the boardwalk. I guess I could learn to like him if it means Gemma stays on the island.
  Last week my left knee gave out on the seventy-eighth step. I had to descend the rest of the way on my bottom, like a toddler. "Knee replacement," the doctor said. "No more stairs."
  I'm too young to retire.

(I thought this fit well on a hurricane weekend with Joaquin passing by the coast of NC.)
 

The Influence of Music on My Writing

  I was in third grade when my older brother Adam brought home the first record album he had purchased with his own money. It was Kiss Destroyer. I remember being stunned and fascinated by the four men on the cover dressed in black leather costumes with chains, platform spiked boots, and makeup masks. Scary stuff for an eight year-old whose musical experience prior to this had consisted of listening to my mother's old Beatles albums on our derelict hi-fi, but I cannot understate its influence on my life.
  I grew to appreciate the loud music coming from Adam's room. While my peers were still singing "It's a Small World," I was soaking up Deep Purple, Peter Frampton, Grand Funk Railroad, Boston, and Bachman Turner Overdrive. My brother was also an avid reader, and I don't think it was a coincidence that his favorite genre was science fiction. His music and reading seemed to go in lock-step, and my own reading preferences soon followed.
  I was eleven years-old when Star Wars came out in theaters. The movie seemed to resonate with me as much as my brother's Rush A Farewell to Kings eight-track tape. After reading every Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and Three Investigators book in fourth and fifth grades, I was ready for something more edgy to stir my imagination. Star Wars was the first SF book I read, and I had to consult a dictionary several times to get through it. Science fiction became my genre of choice.
  In high school I discovered Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series. AC/DC's Back in Black was my favorite album, but I also played air guitar to Scorpions, Quiet Riot, and Def Leppard. My music and reading preferences were in lock-step, and my writing followed suit. I have a filing cabinet drawer full of short stories and half-finished novellas from high school and college, and most of them are SF.
  Does what we listen to influence what we like to read, and vice-versa? Compare my love of heavy metal and science fiction to my best friend in high school who preferred pop music. The first time she played Madonna in the car, I needed a barf bag. It was no surprise to me that she liked to read chick-lit. Nicholas Sparks is still her favorite author. (I need a barf bag just thinking about it.)
  In college I dated a guy who introduced me to more metal and took me to concerts. Judas Priest was our favorite band. He preferred Tom Clancy novels to SF, but I married him anyway.
  When my youngest child was four, I threw away the Sesame Street cassette tapes (it would be another five years before we had a vehicle with a CD player) and told my captive minivan audience, "Now we're going to listen to some real music!" I think the first song I cranked up for them was Collective Soul's "Heavy." And when my oldest son was experimenting with groups like Fallout Boy and Yellow Card in middle school, I bought him the Best of Led Zeppelin. I'm proud to say that he now knows the lyrics to every song by Metallica.
  Now here's my disclaimer: I'm sure there are some country-music lovers out there who like to read horror. There are probably a few Taylor Swift fans who don't read chick-lit. There's no proven correlation between music and literary tastes, but it's definitely been true for me. Listening to metal sparked my interest in science fiction, and, like most authors, I write what I like to read.
  Music stirs my imagination. Reading makes me a better writer, but it's the music that makes me want to write. While I'm sitting in carpool, I blast Rush Clockwork Angels to help me imagine the next scene in my book. What do I listen to while I'm writing? Nothing. Silence. But I need the music to get me in the right frame of mind to write. It's funny how that works.